Mamata to skip NITI Aayog meeting scheduled on Eid

KOLKATA: Chief minister Mamata Banerjee is staying away from NITI Aayog’s governing council meeting in Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair the meeting on June 16 to discuss the country’s development agenda for ‘New India 2022’ with chief ministers and members of the thinktank.
The council is also going to plan with states the celebrations for Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary.

“I am not going to the NITI Aayog meeting. It has been called on the day of Eid-ul-Fitr. I don’t go out of the state during the festival days. There is a national holiday on the occasion of Eid,” the chief minister said on Saturday.

The Bengal government has already announced a holiday on June 16, which is a Saturday. Sources in the state secretariat said Banerjee may nominate a senior government official to attend the meeting.

This is the fourth time that Banerjee is skipping a NITI Aayog meet. The CM stayed away from meetings on three occasions between 2015 and 2018 following differences with the Modi government’s policies — such as land acquisition and appointing central observers to oversee development in most backward districts — or during drawing up of 15-year Vision Document for the country.

Banerjee also seized the opportunity to voice her angst at spiralling prices of petrol, diesel and LPG. “Skyrocketing prices have set kitchens on fire. We feel concerned. There is hardly any measure to check them beyond publicity,” the CM said.

Banerjee’s decision has political significance as well. Her staying in Bengal during Eid, and Modi holding a meeting on the same day, is meant to reassure vast sections of the minority that have expressed their faith in her. At the same time, the CM flagged the spiralling prices, sending out a message that she stood by the people, cutting across religious lines, who were pained by the fuel and LPG price rise.